SkyDrive in Windows 8.1: Cloud storage the way it’s meant to be

Instant access to all your files with much less syncing.

When it was released, Windows 8 integrated cloud services were unmatched by any prior Windows version. Chief among its improvements was the Microsoft Account integration: sign in to Windows with your Microsoft Account credentials, and your settings will roam from machine to machine. Behind the scenes, this syncing all used SkyDrive.

Windows 8 also included a Metro SkyDrive app for browsing SkyDrive storage. This plumbed into the Metro APIs, enabling Metro apps to save and load files directly from SkyDrive. However, it left the desktop behind. The file-syncing desktop app had to be installed separately.

With the desktop app installed in Windows 8 (and below), SkyDrive offers the same kind of syncing and cloud storage that Dropbox and other services provide. Microsoft is more generous with the amount of free storage you get (7GB for SkyDrive, to 2GB for Dropbox, though Dropbox users can earn up to 18GB with referrals and other bonuses), but the experience is broadly similar regardless of which service you use.

This means that SkyDrive in Windows 8 suffers the same annoyance as these other services: what do you do when you don't want to sync all your files to a machine? There's a selective sync option, of course, but if you then want to use a file that's not in the synced set, you have to stop what you're doing and switch to the Web front-end to download them.

SkyDrive in 8.1 changes this up.

First of all, SkyDrive is a lot more prominent now, as it's exposed on the desktop by default. Explorer shows a SkyDrive folder. Libraries, the aggregated storage locations first introduced in Windows 7, aggregate SkyDrive storage by default. The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.

On the Metro side, SkyDrive is now integrated into the settings app. From here you can configure most of SkyDrive's behavior, including which settings are synced, which quality photos are uploaded, and whether to upload on connections that are billed per byte. The Settings app also lets you buy more storage.

What is missing, both in the desktop and the Settings app, is control over selective sync. But that's because of SkyDrive's new feature, which is magical.

SkyDrive now shows all your files as if they had been synced locally. They just look like normal files. They have thumbnails, filenames, all the usual metadata. What they don't do is take up space on disk.

The size on disk is an awful lot less than the amount of data I have.

As soon as an app opens a file (and this applies to both Metro apps and desktop apps), SkyDrive pulls it from the server. Modifications are then synced back normally. The same occurs if a file is copied or moved; it gets automatically retrieved.

Instead of the normal selective sync options, folders can be right clicked (in both the Metro app and Explorer) and set as available offline, forcing files to be downloaded, or online only, removing local copies and doing on-demand downloads.

Behind the scenes, the first time a PC syncs with SkyDrive, it pulls down all the basic metadata: the tree structure, filenames, and so on. Then, it pulls down special metadata, such as thumbnails and full text. In many ways, this makes the files act like normal files. They can be found in searches; they have the right icons in Explorer.

Enlarge/ Although the file isn't downloaded, the thumbnail is still visible.

The files themselves use the reparse point mechanism first introduced in Windows 2000. During that first sync, stub files ("reparse points") are created to mimic the directory structure stored on SkyDrive. Any operation on these files is intercepted automatically, allowing SkyDrive to download the file on-demand.

The use of this (rather low-level) mechanism makes SkyDrive in Windows 8.1 very transparent. Virtually any application should work correctly, with only a download delay disclosing that a file isn't stored locally. Even the command-line can work with SkyDrive files. The system should even work correctly with backup applications. Backup software should understand reparse points and treat them specially, so backing up your SkyDrive folder shouldn't cause the entire thing to be downloaded.

Enlarge/ At the command-line, the reparse points are normally hidden. If you display them, their sizes are shown with brackets around them, to denote that they're not actually taking up that much space.

As a result, you can have tens or hundreds of gigabytes of files stored on a server, while still retaining pseudo-instant access. There's no long sync process.

The system still has a few areas where I think it could be improved. It would be nice to be able to set some kind of overall limit on how much disk space SkyDrive can use; on a small tablet (say, 32 or even 64 GB), I'd like to be able to say, "You can use up to 4 GB for offline storage" and have the software automatically remove local copies of files that I haven't used for a while.

There's also an odd asymmetry with SkyDrive Pro, the similar cloud storage feature that's part of Office 365. SkyDrive Pro shares a name, but appears to share none of the functionality. The magic, transparent access of online files is only found in the regular SkyDrive brand.

In Windows 8.1, SkyDrive becomes an elegant, easy to use cloud storage solution. The free storage alone makes it compelling; the deep integration into the operating system makes it better than its competitors.

I got to say, that first screenshot is the perfect example about what's wrong with Metro. All that wasted space to present a percentage.

I think that's a pretty fatuous complaint, to be honest. Other panes use more of the space; in fact, they use so much space that they have to scroll. It's just that that pane, which had the nice pie chart, doesn't.

I mean, are you really suggesting that every app and window should automatically shrink to the smallest size possible, so flicking through the different settings panes would make the window lurch from being a thin strip to a full screen affair, and back again?

SkyDrive in 8.1 is absolutely fantastic. It's so nice that it doesn't have to sync everything anymore and I love that it's baked into the OS. I do wish there was tiered pricing for those that wants gobs of storage but I guess the $/GB will come down over time. Windows 8.1 is just about perfect imo (ignoring bugs bc it's a preview). Only real complaint is that I'd like a menu for Administrative Tools in the "power menu" or whatever it's called.

If only windows phone could advance this fast... Hopefully that will come with impending reorg.

It would be nice if Microsoft published the APIs for this so that DropBox, Google, Apple, etc. could make their storage act like SkyDrive. It would be interesting to see the options they would allow for multiple storage locations. For example, could I set all files to go to both SkyDrive and Google Drive? Could I combine SkyDrive and Google Drive to create a larger storage area?

I know the vendors think that they are getting a competitive advantage by locking you into their storage only. But, this is just annoying and cumbersome for users. Some sort of detente between the consumer cloud storage vendors would be great.

It would be nice if Microsoft published the APIs for this so that DropBox, Google, Apple, etc. could make their storage act like SkyDrive. It would be interesting to see the options they would allow for multiple storage locations. For example, could I set all files to go to both SkyDrive and Google Drive? Could I combine SkyDrive and Google Drive to create a larger storage area?

I know the vendors think that they are getting a competitive advantage by locking you into their storage only. But, this is just annoying and cumbersome for users. Some sort of detente between the consumer cloud storage vendors would be great.

reparse points available to anyone incl google. But why sync to multiple vendors in the consumer space? You could roll it yourself but I think very few people would bother...

I'm happy with being able to use es file explorer on android to access skydrive, gdrive, dropbox, etc... for those rare cases where I want to keep multiple master copies of something.

I got to say, that first screenshot is the perfect example about what's wrong with Metro. All that wasted space to present a percentage.

I think that's a pretty fatuous complaint, to be honest. Other panes use more of the space; in fact, they use so much space that they have to scroll. It's just that that pane, which had the nice pie chart, doesn't.

I mean, are you really suggesting that every app and window should automatically shrink to the smallest size possible, so flicking through the different settings panes would make the window lurch from being a thin strip to a full screen affair, and back again?

I think that would be pretty poor design, myself.

I like the cloud integration and seamless access but have a few questions. If I've read this right, files saved locally to the Skydrive location still stay local. Whether or not files sync across the system is still something you control by directory setting.

What about manual downloads? If I have a file saved to Skydrive that *isn't* set to automatically sync, does it stay on my system locally when I download it, or does it 'revert' back to the cloud?

Can I set synchronization options file-by-file, or is it still directory-by-directory?

One of the things I dislike about cloud storage and backup systems is that very few of them offer a graceful "Store this file even though I don't have a local copy" option. Either they want to synchronize or they want to be completely asynchronous at the directory level.

What about manual downloads? If I have a file saved to Skydrive that *isn't* set to automatically sync, does it stay on my system locally when I download it, or does it 'revert' back to the cloud?

Can I set synchronization options file-by-file, or is it still directory-by-directory?

One of the things I dislike about cloud storage and backup systems is that very few of them offer a graceful "Store this file even though I don't have a local copy" option. Either they want to synchronize or they want to be completely asynchronous at the directory level.

There's no such thing as a manual download, at least as I understand your question. The way to view SkyDrive is that Windows lets you keep a local cache of some or all of the files in your SkyDrive. If you move an existing file from elsewhere on your filesystem into your local SkyDrive folder, it is automatically uploaded to the cloud. In short, there is no way to have local content in your SkyDrive folder that is not also being automatically synced. This is very similar to the way that client-side caching/offline files works.

You also do have the ability to mark individual files as "make available offline". Once again, the UI looks very similar to offline files.

I switched to Skydrive after buggy Google Drive trashed my sync. I am 100% happy with Skydrive and look forward to the 8.1 version. The competence of Skydrive is a feather in Microsoft's hat. One thing that really needs attention is Skydrive's display of photos. I really like Skydrive's uncomplicated permissions settings for photos (and everything else) but its primitive photo viewing capabilities keep my photos on Google+ and Flickr.

The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.

This could be a security problem. Not all users will know that all documents are suddenly synced to SkyDrive and some documents might be too sensitive for that. Especially with the commonly weak passwords. Does the installer at least notify users of the change?

The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.

This could be a security problem. Not all users will know that all documents are suddenly synced to SkyDrive and some documents might be too sensitive for that. Especially with the commonly weak passwords. Does the installer at least notify users of the change?

It tells you during setup. IIRC, it's one of the items listed that will be applied if you choose the express user setup after install.

The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.

People need to be very wary of this. Last time I looked at SkyDrive's ToS, it wasn't very difficult to get your entire Microsoft account banned such that not only do you lose your Skydrive copies but also effectively lose access to ALL other MS services (e.g. hotmail/live/outlook email account terminated) integrated on your local Windows 8 machine. I'm not just talking about porn/simple nudity. I haven't got the relevant paragraphs atm, but you'd be surprised how easy it is run afoul of their ToS.

I'm using 14gbs of storage currently of my 48 total, 25 free as a legacy user, 20 for office and 3 for student bonus. It keeps four years worth of classes forever synced online, allowing me to instantly share files with friends while on the go (tablet or phone) and pull up my notes or even Matlab files for uploading assignments.

SkyDrive has been a huge benefit to my life, but even I can admit it still has a lot of things which need improvements. For one, group work is nearly impossible with people that do not have a microsoft account and two, the encryption/protection of data is still a major concern for me. I have over 100 gigs of family photos on another account and they could all be gone if someone were to get access to the root accounts, despite two-step authentication.

I find auto upload and skydrive as default option to be a horrible idea. I don't need the cloud for vast vast majority of my files. Even though I have almost half a dozen different computers/tablets/phones, its not that big of a deal.

What are the other advantages? Disk space saving? Yeah, 7gb is useless for that when you have a computer with hundreds of GB or a few TB.

What is a problem is that I've bought tablets for work purposes to pilot more mobile computing and most people will NOT know to change the default saving space. Cloud default to MS servers is a horrible idea for corporate customers.

I find auto upload and skydrive as default option to be a horrible idea. I don't need the cloud for vast vast majority of my files. Even though I have almost half a dozen different computers/tablets/phones, its not that big of a deal.

What are the other advantages? Disk space saving? Yeah, 7gb is useless for that when you have a computer with hundreds of GB or a few TB.

What is a problem is that I've bought tablets for work purposes to pilot more mobile computing and most people will NOT know to change the default saving space. Cloud default to MS servers is a horrible idea for corporate customers.

The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.

People need to be very wary of this. Last time I looked at SkyDrive's ToS, it wasn't very difficult difficult to get your entire Microsoft account banned such that not only do you lose your Skydrive copies but also effectively lose access to ALL other MS service integrated on your local Windows 8 machine.

Be very careful people. Be very careful.

Yeah, throw out a vague random statement, with nothing at all to back anything up, and then throw out a warning. At least define difficult, or as you put it, difficult difficult.

The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.

This could be a security problem. Not all users will know that all documents are suddenly synced to SkyDrive and some documents might be too sensitive for that. Especially with the commonly weak passwords. Does the installer at least notify users of the change?

That is my concern with the skydrive change too, I feel that files shouldn't be synced unless I say they should be synced. The automatic upload is a bad policy and hopefully it won't make it out of the preview if not sooner.

I would have liked to see some more information on the security aspects in this article since I think that is pretty important.

Windows 8 + Windows Phone 8 + SkyDrive = a very happy me. I love that new photos on my phone are automatically uploaded to SkyDrive and almost immediately available on my desktop without any work on my part. Same thing for Office documents. Same thing for OneNote content. I stuck with webOS for four years but Windows Phone/SkyDrive finally convinced me to move on. It has been game-changing for me.

My question is how "publicly accessible" are the things you put in SkyDrive? I remember for a time I think it was SkyDrive had a nasty habit of making images you uploaded indexed by Bing or something of the sort. I'm sure all of that has gotten sorted out by now, but I still have my reservations about using a cloud storage service that I literally have no control over for any sort of personal storage.

I think it's a smart move by Microsoft to embed this into Windows, where many folks will end up using it as their default cloud storage. And 7GB is pretty generous for free.

While I don't think that Microsoft should be allowed to integrate it into the OS for precisely the reason you cite, I do like the pseudo-filesystem integration that it provides.

I wanted something similar for Dropbox on Linux but all these cloud services hold their protocols so close to their chest it's stupid. It might be possible on OwnCloud, but the server-end of that has critical problems with UTF-8 file names so I had to drop it.

Note to self: Don't express an opinion of Microsoft that isn't 100% supportive in all things on Ars.

I feel that files shouldn't be synced unless I say they should be synced.

And they won't unless you save in the folder that actually syncs.

If you want to tell it 'don't sync this', then quite simply don't save in the Skydrive folder. If you're modifying an existing file, make a copy in a local-only directory.

The only folder that syncs is %USERPROFILE%/Skydrive and its subdirectories.

The default save option being in the Skydrive directory can be a potential security problem if you're unaware, sloppy, or inattentive. Unfortunately that also holds true for services like Google Drive and Dropbox.

I feel that files shouldn't be synced unless I say they should be synced.

And they won't unless you save in the folder that actually syncs.

If you want to tell it 'don't sync this', then quite simply don't save in the Skydrive folder. If you're modifying an existing file, make a copy in a local-only directory.

The only folder that syncs is %USERPROFILE%/Skydrive and its subdirectories.

The default save option being in the Skydrive directory can be a potential security problem if you're unaware, sloppy, or inattentive. Unfortunately that also holds true for services like Google Drive and Dropbox.

Except Windows 8.1 will by default map the Documents library to the Skydrive folder.

I feel that files shouldn't be synced unless I say they should be synced.

And they won't unless you save in the folder that actually syncs.

If you want to tell it 'don't sync this', then quite simply don't save in the Skydrive folder. If you're modifying an existing file, make a copy in a local-only directory.

The only folder that syncs is %USERPROFILE%/Skydrive and its subdirectories.

The default save option being in the Skydrive directory can be a potential security problem if you're unaware, sloppy, or inattentive. Unfortunately that also holds true for services like Google Drive and Dropbox.

They're wanting to avoid having a storage-limited device like a phone or a tablet downloading lots of large files. But they're also forgetting that the new version of SkyDrive doesn't sync file contents, only metadata, until the file is actually used.

The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.

This could be a security problem. Not all users will know that all documents are suddenly synced to SkyDrive and some documents might be too sensitive for that. Especially with the commonly weak passwords. Does the installer at least notify users of the change?

That is my concern with the skydrive change too, I feel that files shouldn't be synced unless I say they should be synced. The automatic upload is a bad policy and hopefully it won't make it out of the preview if not sooner.

I would have liked to see some more information on the security aspects in this article since I think that is pretty important.

All you have to do it save your files to a different folder than the default documents folder. Just make a local folder and stick everything in their instead of the documents default folder.

The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.

This could be a security problem. Not all users will know that all documents are suddenly synced to SkyDrive and some documents might be too sensitive for that. Especially with the commonly weak passwords. Does the installer at least notify users of the change?

That is my concern with the skydrive change too, I feel that files shouldn't be synced unless I say they should be synced. The automatic upload is a bad policy and hopefully it won't make it out of the preview if not sooner.

I would have liked to see some more information on the security aspects in this article since I think that is pretty important.

All you have to do it save your files to a different folder than the default documents folder. Just make a local folder and stick everything in their instead of the documents default folder.

I don't feel anyone should have to do that because of MS poor policies. I also argue that my documents library folder is currently already a local folder and MS shouldn't decide to change that by default like it is currently doing in 8.1.

If it isn't removed by release then I will be shutting off the SkyDrive sync altogether which is supposed to be an option in the settings or disable it entirely through security policies.

Unfortunately for MS that means that I won't be able to use skydrive again because of MS bad policies and will use something else instead.

"People need to be very wary of this. Last time I looked at SkyDrive's ToS, it wasn't very difficult to get your entire Microsoft account banned such that not only do you lose your Skydrive copies but also effectively lose access to ALL other MS service integrated on your local Windows 8 machine. I'm not just talking about porn/simple nudity."

I can only say that Microsoft needs to be very careful with this. I don't have any porn but I do have treasured photos of my kids being born (30 years ago), those same kids in the bathtub with me and so forth. If I see many reports of Microsoft deleting accounts for this sort of thing, I will be an ex-Skydrive user ASAP.

The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.

People need to be very wary of this. Last time I looked at SkyDrive's ToS, it wasn't very difficult to get your entire Microsoft account banned such that not only do you lose your Skydrive copies but also effectively lose access to ALL other MS service integrated on your local Windows 8 machine. I'm not just talking about porn/simple nudity. I haven't got the relevant paragraphs atm, but you'd be surprised how easy it is run afoul of their ToS.

There are a couple reasons that SkyDrive is not as far ahead of competitors as implied:

1). IIRC this is not true: "This means that SkyDrive in Windows 8 suffers the same annoyance as these other services: what do you do when you don't want to sync all your files to a machine?"One example, services like SugarSync have had this flexibility for a long time.

2). The cloud sync space has shifted over the last year to become more about establishing a platform to build apps and services on top of. SkyDrive is not competitive here yet. For example site44.com is quite a handy tool that makes use of the DropBox api.

I would like to switch to SkyDrive because I somehow have 25GB free storage. However the convenience of the new Win 8.1 abstraction doesn't outweigh the other factors for me.